Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) plans to give a speech in the coming days that compares President Trump’s public criticism of the news media to similar comments once made by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
A spokesman said that Flake, who will retire after this year amid intense political pressure sparked by his criticism of the president, plans to deliver the speech Wednesday before Trump announces the winners of his self-described “fake news” awards.
Trump announced via Twitter that he would be handing out awards Wednesday to news outlets he thought unfairly covered him.
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Flake continues to be one of Trump’s most frequent critics, often speaking out to warn that the president’s words and actions could be detrimental to the future of the Republican Party and the nation’s standing worldwide.
In recent days, he was among the lawmakers who denounced Trump for describing certain African nations and Haiti as “shithole countries” during an Oval Office meeting on immigration policy. Flake has been negotiating a bipartisan deal on immigration with Sens. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). In an interview with The Washington Post on Friday, Flake said that he was not at the meeting, but heard about Trump’s comment “before it went public. And what I’ve heard reported is consistent about what I heard about the meeting.”
“I’m not surprised at the sentiment expressed — it’s consistent with what he’s said — but that he would do that knowing the fury it would cause,” Flake added.
Flake plans to use his upcoming speech to denounce Trump for calling the news media “the enemy of the American people” last year.
In excerpts provided by his office, he is poised to blast Trump’s “unrelenting daily assault on the constitutionally-protected free press” that he will call “as unprecedented as it is unwarranted.”
“It is a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own president uses words infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies,” Flake will say, according to the excerpts. “It bears noting that so fraught with malice was the phrase ‘enemy of the people,’ that even Nikita Khrushchev forbade its use, telling the Soviet Communist Party that the phrase had been introduced by Stalin for the purpose of ‘annihilating such individuals’ who disagreed with the supreme leader.”
Flake will add that Trump “has it precisely backward — despotism is the enemy of the people. The free press is the despot’s enemy, which makes the free press the guardian of democracy. When a figure in power reflexively calls any press that doesn’t suit him ‘fake news,’ it is that person who should be the figure of suspicion, not the press.”
On MSNBC Sunday night, Flake said that in addition to Stalin, Mao Zedong, the former leader of the Chinese Communist Party, also referred to the media as the “enemy of the people.” And he repeated his point that Khrushchev later forbade the use of the term.
“I don’t think that we should be using a phrase that’s been rejected as too loaded by a Soviet dictator,” Flake said on “Kasie DC.”
Flake was elected to the Senate in 2012 and announced last year that he would not seek a second term this November. The Republican contest to succeed him includes former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio, Rep. Martha McSally and former state senator Kelli Ward. The winner is expected to face Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D) in the general election.
Flake has declined to endorse a potential successor.
Here are the excerpts provided in advance by Flake’s office:
2017 was a year which saw the truth — objective, empirical, evidence-based truth — more battered and abused than any other in the history of our country, at the hands of the most powerful figure in our government. It was a year which saw the White House enshrine “alternative facts” into the American lexicon, as justification for what used to be known simply as good old-fashioned falsehoods. It was the year in which an unrelenting daily assault on the constitutionally-protected free press was launched by that same White House, an assault that is as unprecedented as it is unwarranted. “The enemy of the people,” was what the president of the United States called the free press in 2017.
Mr. President, it is a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own president uses words infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies. It bears noting that so fraught with malice was the phrase “enemy of the people,” that even Nikita Khrushchev forbade its use, telling the Soviet Communist Party that the phrase had been introduced by Stalin for the purpose of “annihilating such individuals” who disagreed with the supreme leader.
This alone should be a source of great shame for us in this body, especially for those of us in the president’s party. For they are shameful, repulsive statements. And, of course, the president has it precisely backward — despotism is the enemy of the people. The free press is the despot’s enemy, which makes the free press the guardian of democracy. When a figure in power reflexively calls any press that doesn’t suit him “fake news,” it is that person who should be the figure of suspicion, not the press.
I dare say that anyone who has the privilege and awesome responsibility to serve in this chamber knows that these reflexive slurs of “fake news” are dubious, at best. Those of us who travel overseas, especially to war zones and other troubled areas around the globe, encounter members of U.S. based media who risk their lives, and sometimes lose their lives, reporting on the truth. To dismiss their work as fake news is an affront to commitment and their sacrifice. Mr. President, a new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists documents that the number of journalists imprisoned around the world has reached 262, which is a new record. This total includes 21 reporters who are being held on “false news” charges.
And Flake believes that the New York Times financed by a foreign billionaire is ‘free’, that the Washington Post owned by the richest man in the world is about ‘Democracy’ or the interests of Jeff Bezos.
Flake has never held a real job beyond politics so the end of his political career poses real problem for a man in his mid fifties with no obvious talents or private sector experience. Unfortunately he is not subject to Trumps prohibition on lobbying so Flake is clearly angling for position as a boot licker for the oligarchy. He has gradually jettisoned his earlier conservative positions in order to make himself suitable for some David Gergen style media post or a butt boy directorship.
Flake is an appropriate name for a rino turd who stands with crap like Sen John “let’s have a war” Insane and Lindsey “ladyboy” Graham. Enough of these clowns who sell out America at every opportunity already. Good riddance.
I guess “Trump is Hitler” has failed to work so now the Left is trying “Trump is Stalin”?
Trump is most like Berlusconi. That’s fine with me.
I’m kind of surprised. Stalin was a communist, and the Left usually gives him a pass for it.
Bill Burr did a bit on it, good stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_q0zti69gA
it is an improvement. At least the media are now resorting to conflation with Leftist Fascists.
Flakes a flake. -30-
Trump has a constitutionally protected right to call the press liars. He also has a moral obligation to call those lying liars liars.
Fuck that left wing, illegal loving commie piece of shit Flake! Good riddance. Maybe with him & McStain gone, Arizona can elect some republicans for a change.
You misspelled McSkidmark’s name. You get a pass for it; McStain is fairly close.
Flake is named appropriately.
If it weren’t for John ‘Just-Fucking-Die-Already’ McCain and Lindsay ‘Shithole Aficionado’ Graham, Jeff Flake would be the shittiest fake Republican in Congress.
If he’s not running a 2nd term, maybe it’s because they have something on him, and his deal was to go away. Like Franken, he’s running his yap for more typical whining as 1 last attempt to shit on Trump, and perpetuate the false narrative, trying to sound diplomatic in his biased condemnation. If he talks smack, the administration should revoke the deal, and sick the DOJ on his ass if possible. Go away quietly, numbnuts. And take little Bob Corker with you. Use crumpled up WaPo & NYT paper to pack your shit into boxes. Or put it on the bottom of your cage, parakeet.
Nah. Flake read his real poll numbers-about 5% approval. Hard to rig an election when you have numbers that low and the whole state knows it. Hey, they even know about those low numbers up in Thief River Falls. When the Swedes know it, I guarantee you that everyone knows it.
Don’t know who actually gave Flake enough upvotes to make 5%, but someone should be funded to study them and write a book. Could be interesting, like that tribe in the Amazon basin who cannot conceive of numbers greater than three.
Hey, I am writing this on my personal time wasting device during a break, so it is not like I am stealing time, and I did close a big sale tody with that big farmer I have been chasing for six months. Still, lets keep this our little secret that I posted a comment today.
I love living in AZ since 1978. But, BOTH Jeff [the] Flake AND John INsane are such an embarrassment. I am hope that AZ’s gross, institutionalized election rigging will NOT help “the Flake” in any possible future NATIONAL campaign as a replacement for the Trumpster.
I wonder what sort of skeletons McFlake had in his closet? I’d say that after a few checks at the NSA, Trump sent some associates to break the facts to McFlake that he had to go. If I was that bastard I’d be too afraid to shoot my mouth off.
If Trump was anything like Stalin LOTS of people would have already been put on display in show trials and the sentence would have been the same- a bullet in the back of the head.
“Death solves all problems- no man, no problem.”
It’s funny that so many Republicans are “declining” to run again. Ditto in reference to more NSA checks. Trump hasn’t done this to the Democrats. He needs them to really put on a public spectacle. I predict there will be show trials that are REAL trials where they are the main entertainment and their crimes will range to include fraud, murder, treason, and human trafficking. Trump will remake what ever he wants the GOP to be while the Democrats go the way of the Whigs.
add bribery, embezzlement, theft, perjury, pedophilia, child murder/sacrifice, etc
“for some, 4 walls are 3 to many” stalin
Fake and McPain need to just go away. They are both good examples for term limits.
Who gives a damn what that Democrat says?
Does anyone remember the scene from Swordfish when Gabriel (John Travolta) shoots the evil senator (Sam Shepard) through the heart for treason?
Anyone?